Have We Lost Our Humanity?

I have an answer to this question, but I’ll leave it to you to answer it at the end of the article.

Do you notice the problem with these columns? They divide people into polarized groups. While we might view ourselves as members of any number of these groups, the fact is—and it’s proven by your identifying with multiple groups—we are so much more than any binary classification system can convey. And if that is true for us, then it is necessarily true for them as well.

Look at that. Even in my explanation of the problem, I fell into the classic binary used for segregation. Us vs. them.¹ This is one reason why American life has gotten so stupid recently. It’s why our self-esteem has fallen. It’s why we always fear the next war. It’s why we currently have the President we do.

It doesn’t matter a person’s race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, marital status, or potential disability—we are all homo sapiens, and science backs this up. The term itself means “same intelligence,” and perhaps this says something about our proclivity to follow the crowd and resist speaking necessary truth that might challenge the status quo. We don’t want to be othered, viewed as “different intelligence”—hetero sapiens. Because being viewed as anything but homo sapiens (humanity) is an exercise in dehumanization.

This is the problem in America (though it’s not an exclusively American problem). We would rather point fingers across the aisle (whatever form that aisle might take: political, religious, sexual) and dehumanize the other side than recognize our similarities.

Sure, the guy on the other side of the aisle is a homosexual Democrat, but he cares just as much about affording groceries, holding a steady job, and avoiding bombs from foreign militaries as the heterosexual Republican does. Each cares deeply about the safety of children—his own and others’. Each wants access to the freedoms our Constitution promised, which the Bill of Rights explicated.

So why do we focus on skin tones and what people are doing in the privacy of their bedrooms to the detriment of ourselves and our society?

Take any of the labels I placed at the top of this article and tell me how they can be used without taking something critical away from the person it’s being attached to?

But you’re right. We like classifying things. The very title homo sapiens is a result of a very detailed and methodological classification of life on earth.² But science classified all of us— handicapped, Hindu, homosexual—as homo sapiens. It did not break that classification down farther based on race or creed or sexual orientation.³ And we should be very careful in this regard, lest we commit the most prevalent crime against humanity: dehumanization. Because let’s face it—genocide only occurs after a group has been dehumanized.⁴

When we lump people into binary categories, no matter how accurate, categories can’t convey enough information,⁵ and we end up robbing people of their true identities. When we rob people of their identities by placing them in stereotyped categories, we are guilty of dehumanization.

Moving more specifically into politics: Democrats are not the problem, but neither are Republicans. It might make us feel better to place the blame on one side of the aisle or the other, but this only exacerbates the problem. I mentioned above that our current President is only president due to us vs. them rhetoric. He played off our dehumanization tactics and the masses loved him for it. He talked like they talk; he acted like they act; he “keeps it real.” And now we are seeing what our dehumanizing rhetoric results in.

I mentioned last time that America needs more than simply increased efficiency of its immigration process. We need to become America again—admittedly an America that likely never really existed—by putting the unity back into (or into for the first time) the United States of America. We need to unite in such a way that even if we disagree on policies, we still care for one another—regardless of color, creed, or country of origin. We must say “No!” to dehumanization. So I ask you:

Have we lost our humanity?

Or—at the very least—can you admit we are losing our humanity?

Next time we will look at proof for why the binary labels are unhelpful. Hint: There are more than just Republicans and Democrats out there.

In this with you.

Thanks for reading.

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Notes and References

1. See Alissa Marie Davies, “An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Dehumanization during the Holocaust,” (Undergraduate Honors thesis, University of New Haven, 2022), 14-18, https://digitalcommons.newhaven.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=honorstheses. ↩︎
2. Carl Linnaeus was the first to use this term in his 1735 publication: A General System of Nature. This work went through twelve additions in Linnaeus’ lifetime, and it wasn’t until the tenth edition (1758) that Linnaeus “add[ed] physical and moral attributes to geography and skin colour.” However, Linnaeus was careful throughout to emphasize that there was only one species displaying variations “according to climate and environment.” ↩︎
3. While it is true that Linnaeus’ varieties of homo sapiens were later used to justify racism (see Francis Rolt-Wheeler, “The Unity and Varity of Man,” in The Science-History of the Universe, vol.7 [1909], 32–48), and the attributes Linnaeus described in the tenth edition were clearly racist from our perspective (see A General System of Nature [1802], 9 ), he wrote, “who with a sane mind would be so frivolous as to call these distinct species?” ↩︎
4. Alexander P. Landry, Ram I. Orr, and Kayla Mere, “Dehumanization and Mass Violence: A Study of Mental State Language in Nazi Propaganda (1927–1945),” PLOS ONE 17, no. 11 (2022), https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274957. ↩︎
5. Categories can be helpful, but we must always remember that people are more than the labels they use on themselves, and they are certainly more than the labels other people attribute to them. Let’s fight the urge that makes us look like elementary children name-calling each other on the playground. ↩︎